Method and apparatus to process an incoming message

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus to process an incoming message is described. The method may comprise, at a recipient system, receiving an incoming message from a message communicator and automatically analyzing message content to identify a keyword included in the message content. Thereafter, a predefined action associated with the keyword may be identified and the action may be performed. In an example embodiment, the predefined action may be a priority with the message, alerting an intended recipient of the message, routing the message to the intended recipient, paging the intended recipient, emailing the message to the intended recipient, sending an SMS message to the intended recipient, or the like. In an example embodiment, a user/owner of a mailbox may search a message database to identify incoming messages which includes the search term in the message content.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This application relates to a method and apparatus to process andincoming message. In an example embodiment, the method and apparatus mayprocess an incoming voice message in a telephone communication system.

BACKGROUND

Voice mail systems are well known in the art. Currently, a sender of avoice mail message may set the priority of the message. Likewise, asender of an email message may set the priority of the email message(e.g., flag the importance of the email message as “Low,” “Medium,” and“High”). However, a recipient of the message may not consider themessage to be of the same importance as the sender.

In order to identify the importance defined by the sender, a mailmessage may include an indicator in an envelope that is communicatedfrom a sender device to a recipient device. Typically, included in theenvelope are various separate fields such as a routing informationfield, a message importance field, a payload field that includes thepayload or actual message content, and the like.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the present invention are illustrated by way of exampleand not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in whichlike references indicate similar elements and in which:

FIG. 1 shows architecture of a system, in accordance with the an exampleembodiment, to process electronic messages;

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of apparatus, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, to process an incoming message;

FIG. 3 shows a flow diagram of a method, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, of processing an incoming message;

FIG. 4 shows a flow diagram of a method, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, to allow a user to define keywords and associated actions;

FIG. 5 shows a flow diagram of a method, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, of searching a plurality of stored messages using keywords;

FIG. 6 shows a flow diagram of a method, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, of processing an Instant Message received at an InstantMessage client;

FIG. 7 shows a flow diagram of a method, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, of processing a plurality of email messages to define anorder in which they are downloaded to a mail client; and

FIG. 8 shows a block diagram of a machine including instructions toperform any one or more of the methodologies described herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In an example embodiment, a method and a system to process an incomingmessage received via a communication network is described.

In the following detailed description of example embodiments, referenceis made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and inwhich is shown by way of illustration specific embodiments in which theexample method, apparatus and system may be practiced. It is to beunderstood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changesmay be made without departing from the scope of this description. FIG. 1shows architecture of a system 10, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, to process incoming messages. For example, the system 10 maybe used to process voice mail messages, Instant Messages (IM), emailmessages, or the like sent via any communication network. However,unlike prior art systems, incoming messages in the system 10 areprocessed based on the message content included within the incomingmessage. For example, the term “incoming message” may define the entirecommunication package communicated between a sender and a recipient andmay comprise an envelope which includes a plurality of separate messagefields. For example, a message field may be provided for routinginformation, a message field may be provided for a priority indicator, amessage field may be provided for a payload, or the like. The fieldprovided for the payload typically includes the actual voice or textmessage herein referred to as the message content. Thus, the messagecontent may be the actual text which a sender communicates to arecipient, the actual voice or speech data communicated to therecipient, or the like. Thus, in an embodiment, the message content maythus be the actual linguistic communication, written or spoken, whichthe sender wishes to convey to the recipient. The message content maythus form part of a total communication or envelope communicated betweena sending device and a receiving device.

The system 10 is shown to include a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)phone 12, a telephone 14 (which may be a cellular telephone, a wired orlandline telephone, or the like), a computer 16 (e.g. a personalcomputer including an email and/or Instant Message client), a pager 18,or any other device 20 capable of communicating messages from a senderto a recipient. The devices 12 to 20, may communicate via one or morenetworks 22 with a voice mail system or apparatus 24. Unlike prior artsystems where the importance of an incoming message is defined by asender, in the system 10, the voice mail apparatus 24 may define theimportance or any action to be performed on an incoming message. Theaction performed on the incoming message may thus be independent of anypriority or importance attached to the incoming message by a sender.Further, unlike prior art systems where any importance attached by thesender to the message is by virtue of a flag that is not derived in anyway from the message content, the voice mail system 24 analyses themessage content of an incoming message in an automated fashion, andwithout human intervention, to identify a keyword (or keywords) includedin the message content. Thereafter, as described in more detail below, apredefined action (or actions) associated with the keyword may beautomatically identified and the action may be automatically performedor executed when the keyword is identified in the message content.

As a predefined action (e.g. attaching an importance to an incomingmessage) may be identified from the actual message content when theincoming message is received at the recipient, it may be performed in anautomated fashion without further interaction with a user. Thus, thesystem 10 differs from prior art call center configurations where a usermay be required to identify the importance of an incoming message viaInteractive Voice Recognition (IVR) technology. However, it will stillbe appreciated that it is in this prior art case the sender defines thepriority of the message and that such a priority may not correspond tothe priority attached to the message by the recipient. Further, suchpriority is attached to the message in general and is not dependent orautomatically derived, without human intervention, from the actualmessage content of a message which is communicated from a sender to arecipient.

It will be appreciated that the system 10 shown in FIG. 1 may include aplurality of different devices and that the devices shown in FIG. 1 aremerely by way of example. Thus, it will be appreciated that any mobiletelephone device connected to a mobile telephone network may interfacewith the voice mail apparatus 24. Likewise, any traditional circuittransmissions of a Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) or VoIP phonesystem may interface with the voice mail apparatus 24. Thus the one ormore networks 22 may include a Local Area Network (LAN), Wide AreaNetwork (WAN), or the Internet and, accordingly, any computer orcomputing device may also communicate with the voice mail apparatus 24via the Internet.

FIG. 2 shows block diagram of apparatus, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, to process incoming messages. The apparatus of FIG. 2 mayform part of the system 10 and is described herein, by way of example,with reference to the system 10.

The apparatus 30 is shown to include a communication interface 32, anAdaptive Speech Recognition (ASR) module 34, a processing module 36, anoptional voice mail search module 38, a keyword database 40, andoptional legacy modules of a voice mail system 42. The communicationinterface 32 may interface the apparatus 30 to any one or more of thedevices 12 to 20 via any one or more networks 22 as shown in FIG. 1. Itwill be appreciated that any of the modules of the apparatus 30 may beimplemented in hardware or software. Although the system and apparatusis described with reference to ASR and keywords (hot words), it shouldbe understood by inclusion that throughout this document that thereference to ASR is interchangeable with natural language recognition(or any other speech recognition technology) and the keywords (hotwords) may constitute a phrase that is then recognized

Referring to FIG. 3, reference 50 generally indicates a flow diagram ofa method, in accordance with an example embodiment, of processing anincoming message. The method 50 may be performed by the apparatus 30and, accordingly, is described herein with reference thereto. As shownat block 52, an incoming message may be received from a messagecommunicator or sender at the communication interface 32. Thecommunication interface 32 may then communicate the incoming message(e.g. a Real Time Transport Protocol (RTP Control Protocol or RTCP)) tothe Adaptive Speech Recognition module 34. Prior to performing speechrecognition, the actual message content (e.g. the actual voice or speechmessage communicated by the sender) may then be extracted from the totalmessage incoming message. Thus, in an embodiment, incoming audio messagecontent (in digital or analog form) is processed or transformed into atextual equivalent of the message. It is however to be appreciated thatthe invention is not limited to algorithms that convert the keywords(hot words) into text. In certain embodiments, the system may workdirectly from audio phrases without the conversion to text. Thus,identification of one or more keywords (e.g., forming a phrase) may beperformed in the audio domain where a voice message is analyzed toidentify one or more keywords. Based on processing in the audio domain,one or more actions may be executed.

Thereafter, as shown in block 54, the processing module 36 mayautomatically analyze the message content to identify if one or morekeywords exist in the textual equivalent of the message content. Thekeywords, or “hot words”, may be provided in the keyword database 40(e.g. in an XML format). Each keyword may have one or more predefinedactions associated therewith. For example, a particular keyword may havean action such as associating a priority with the incoming message,alerting an intended recipient (e.g. the mailbox owner) of the incomingmessage, routing the incoming message to the intended recipient, pagingthe intended recipient, emailing the incoming message to the intendedrecipient, sending an SMS message to the intended recipient, or anyother user defined action. Thus, as shown at block 54, the method 50 mayinvestigate or interrogate the keyword database 40 to initially identifywhich keywords are to be searched for in the incoming message and, if aparticular keyword is found, identify the predefined action or actionsassociated with the keyword. Thereafter, as shown at block 56 thepredefined action may be performed or executed. Thus, the apparatus 30may define a content sensitive voice mail system where a recipient of avoice mail defines an action dependent upon the content of the voicemail. Similarly, natural speech recognition may be used to identifyphrases.

In an example embodiment, the apparatus 30 may be language sensitive orprovide a facility to define more than one language associated with thekeywords. For example, the apparatus 30 may identify a source of anincoming message (e.g. a source of an incoming telephone call) andassociate a particular language with the source of the incoming message.For example, if it is determined from caller identification informationthat the incoming message is a voice message from a person in France,then a French language profile, including French keywords, may beretrieved from the database 40. In an example embodiment, a user may beprompted to identify which particular language they are communicatingthe message in.

The apparatus 30 may, for example, form part of a voice mail system of amedical clinic or medical doctor. For example, a doctor may definekeywords relating to a particular patient and/or particular medicalcondition. In addition, the doctor may then define actions to beperformed when a voice mail is received including the keywords. Forexample, the doctor may define a patient's name (e.g. “Jones”) and ahealth condition (e.g. “heart”) as keywords. Further, an action such asautomatically forwarding a call to the doctor's mobile telephone orautomatically attaching a high priority to the call may be associatedwith the keywords. Accordingly, if Mr. Jones were to call and indicatein his voice mail that he was Mr. Jones and that he had a heartcondition, the apparatus 30 would automatically identify these words inthe voice message, and perform the actions defined by the doctor. Thus,in the present example, the call or message would be either marked as ahigh priority message or immediately forwarded to the doctor's mobiletelephone. It will, however, be appreciated that the keywords and theassociated actions may vary from one deployment of the apparatus 30 toanother. Further, the apparatus 30 is not restricted to processing onlystored messages and may process and incoming message (e.g., an incomingtelephone call) on-the-fly or in real time. Thus, in an exampleembodiment, an incoming telephone call may be processed while the calleris speaking.

FIG. 4 shows a flow diagram of the method, in accordance with an exampleembodiment, that allows a user to define keywords and their associatedactions. As shown at block 62, a user interface may be provided by, forexample, the apparatus 30. The user interface may, for example, be a webinterface, a voice interface where a user dials into the apparatus 30,or any other interface wherein keywords and associated actions can becommunicated to the apparatus 30 by a user (e.g., a mailbox owner). Inan example embodiment, preprogrammed keywords and/or actions may beprovided in the database 40 of the apparatus 30. Thus, for example, auser may then select any one or more of the preprogrammed keywords andtheir associated actions. Further, it will be appreciated that a usermay define their own proprietary actions that may be associated witheach keyword.

In method 60, as shown at block 64, a user may be authenticated prior toallowing the user access to a user specific profile of keywords andassociated predefined actions. Once the user has been authenticated, theapparatus 30 may receive new keywords that the user has defined and/orselected (see block 66) and, thereafter, the apparatus 30 may receivenew actions that have been defined by the user and which are associatedwith the new keywords (see block 68). As shown at block 70, the newkeywords and new actions may then be stored (e.g. in the database 40).In an embodiment, multiple users may be associated with the apparatus 30and, accordingly, each user may have a user profile that allowscustomization of keywords and predefined actions for the particularuser. It will be however be appreciated that certain keywords andactions may be common to all users. As mentioned above, it will beappreciated that the user interface that allows the user to define newkeywords and actions may use any communication medium (e.g. an emailcommunication, a voice mail communication, an Instant Messagecommunication, web interface via a browser, or the like).

In an example embodiment, a user may dial into the apparatus 30, whichmay form part of a voice mail system, and, upon authentication, may bepresented with a Telephone User Interface (TUI) menu. For example, thetelephone user interface menu may prompt the user with the followingaudio instructions: “to listen to your voice mail messages, please press1; to set your personal preferences, please press 2, and so on.” A usermay then select the personal preferences option and be presented with arelevant menu such as: “to change your outgoing message, please press 1,to set your keywords, please press 2, to set actions associated withkeywords, please press 3, and so on.” The user may then choose thekeywords or hot words option and record a sequence of keywords which arethen stored in a personal profile and associated with the user'smailbox. In an embodiment, the user may utilize natural languagecapabilities of the apparatus 30 and instruct the apparatus 30 via aspoken sentence. For example, after authentication, the user may hear ashort prompt such as: “please specify your command”. In response, theuser may say “please configure my three keywords to be ‘word 1’, ‘word2’, and ‘word 3’.” Following on the example above, with respect to amedical practice, the user may command the apparatus 30 as follows:“please configure my three keywords to be ‘Jones’, ‘heart’, and‘statuses.” The apparatus 30 may then play back to a caller (in thepresent example a doctor associated with the mailbox) a confirmationmessage such as: “you have asked to configure three keywords: ‘Jones’,‘heart’, and ‘statuses. If this is correct please acknowledge or say‘modify’.” Once the user acknowledges that the system or apparatus hasproperly recorded the three keywords, the keywords may then be stored inthe user's personal profile in the database 40 and associated with theirmailbox.

In an embodiment, the apparatus 30 allows the user to program actions orrules for the keywords. For example, the user may mark as urgent anycall from a particular caller that includes the words “dinner” and “at”.For example, returning to the medical example, any messages that includethe keywords “blood test results” may be marked as urgent. In an exampleembodiment, caller identification may also be used in conjunction withthe keywords to perform a particular predefined action. In one exampledeployment of the apparatus 30, when an incoming call is redirected to avoice mail system, the adaptive speech recognition module 34 may beconferenced in to a voice path of a voice mail system. Further, theapparatus 30 may then dynamically load corresponding keywords to speechrecognition from the associated personal profile. Thus, different usersof the apparatus 30 may have customized personal profiles each includinghot words or keywords that they have defined and that are relevant tothem.

In an embodiment, if the message content of an incoming call or messageincludes any one or more of the keywords, the voice mail apparatus 30may mark the message as urgent, or as of high priority. In addition orinstead, the apparatus 30 may call the recipient user on an alternative(e.g. a home or cellular) telephone number and inform the recipient userof the high priority call or transfer the call to the alternativetelephone number. In an embodiment, the apparatus 30 may intermittentlyor periodically call alternative numbers or alert the user to a highpriority message via e-page, SMS, Instant Messaging (IM), or the like.Thus, the apparatus 30 allows a user of a voice mail apparatus to definekeywords and, in an embodiment, to associate or compare the keywordsagainst a preprogrammed set of user specific rules or actions. As soonas a rule or action is matched, the apparatus may mark the call asurgent or high priority and act in accordance with the preprogrammed orpredefined action or plan.

As shown in FIG. 2, in one example embodiment, the apparatus 30 includesa voice mail search module 38 that allows a user to search his or hervoice mail messages to identify one or more incoming messages thatinclude a corresponding keyword in the message content. The searchmodule 38 is described by way of example with reference to a method, inaccordance with an example embodiment, shown in FIG. 5.

The method 70 is shown at block 72 to receive a search query from auser/owner of a voice mail box that includes one or more keywords.Thereafter, as shown at block 74, a database of stored messages may besearched to identify messages including one or more of the search termsor keywords. For example, the database 40 may be searched utilizing thevoice mail search module 38. Returning to the medical doctor example, adoctor may call in to the apparatus 30 and via a search interface,search all his or her email messages for the words “Jones” and “heart”.In this given example, the voice mail search module 38 may then searchall the voice mail messages associated with the doctor's profile andreturn or playback those messages that include the search terms orkeywords. Thus, the voice mail search module 38 may facilitateidentifying voice mail messages of high priority or of a particularconcern to the user and identify them from a plurality of other voicemail messages which may be less relevant. It will, however, beappreciated to a person of skill in the art that the searchfunctionality may also be used to search email messages, instantmessages, or the like.

In an embodiment, the method 70 receives a voice query including aspoken search term and performs speech recognition on the spoken searchterm to obtain an equivalent textual search term. Thereafter, thedatabase of incoming messages is searched using the textual equivalentsearch term to identify any incoming messages including the spokensearch term. In addition or instead, the method 70 may receive a textualquery including a textual search term and search the database ofincoming messages with the textual search term to identify any incomingmessages including the textual search term. In an embodiment, methodsdescribed herein may identify the phrases without the need to convertthe keywords (hot words) into text but perform the analysis in the audiodomain.

When one or more keywords have been identified in one or more messages,those messages that have been found are then presented to the user (seeblock 76). For example, the message(s) including the keyword(s) may beplayed back to the user in a similar fashion to a conventional voicemail message. In an embodiment, the search is performed in the audiodomain.

Referring to FIG. 6, reference 80 generally indicates a flow diagram ofa method, in accordance with an example embodiment, for processing anincoming instant message. Unlike current instant messaging systems,where an incoming instant message is either displayed or not displayeddependent upon whether the recipient user has defined himself or herselfas available or not, the method 80 allows a user to define variousstates of an instant messaging client dependent upon the message contentof the instant message. As described above, one or more predefinedactions or rules may be associated with keywords and, when the keywordsare present in the message content of the instant message, thepredefined action may be performed. In an example embodiment, thepredefined action may be defining a state of the instant messagingclient. Thus, other than an available or not available state whichdetermines whether or not an email message is displayed to the user, theaction may define another state in which the email message iscommunicated to the user based on the message content.

As shown at block 82, an instant message may be received where after, asshown at decision block 84, a determination is made as to whether or notthe recipient user is available. If the recipient user is available thenthe incoming instant message is immediately displayed to the user asshown at block 86. If, however, the recipient user has defined orindicated in the instant messaging client that he or she is notavailable, then the method 80 may parse or analyze the instant messagecontent to identify whether or not any user defined keywords are present(see block 88). As shown at decision block 90, if a keyword is presentin the instant message content, the method 80 may then display theinstant message to the user as shown at block 86. If, however, thekeyword is not present in the instant message content, the method 80 maysend the instant message to an instant message mailbox. Thus, a user maydefine whether or not an instant message is displayed or not dependentupon the content of the instant message.

Referring in particular to FIG. 7, reference 100 shows a flow diagram ofa method, in accordance with an example embodiment, to prioritize emailsand, in response to the prioritization, download the emails in aspecific order to a mail client. Accordingly, as shown at block 102, themethod may receive an email at an email server. Thereafter, the method100 analyzes the message content of the email message to identify if themessage includes any particular keywords (see block 104). The keywordsmay, as hereinbefore described, be associated with an action which, inan example embodiment, is a prioritization of the email. Thus, as shownat block 106, dependent on whether or not a particular keyword (orkeywords) is included in the message content of the email, the email maybe prioritized for downloading. Further, the downloading priority may bedependent upon the specific keyword or keywords included in the emailmessage content. For example, if a large number of emails are to bedownloaded from an email server to a client device (e.g. a laptopcomputer or the like), those emails with a higher priority may bedownloaded before those emails with a lower priority. In the method 100,the priority of the email may be determined by the recipient of theemail as the recipient may define the keywords which, in turn, determinethe priority of the email, unlike the prior art systems where the senderdefines the priority by setting an indicator, for example, as highermedium and low. Thus, as shown at block 108, when the emails aredownloaded from a mail server, they are downloaded in an order ofimportance defined by the recipient and not by the sender.

FIG. 8 shows a diagrammatic representation of machine in the exampleform of a computer system 200 within which a set of instructions, forcausing the machine to perform any one or more of the methodologiesdiscussed herein, may be executed. In alternative embodiments, themachine operates as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g.,networked) to other machines. In a networked deployment, the machine mayoperate in the capacity of a server or a client machine in server-clientnetwork environment, or as a peer machine in a peer-to-peer (ordistributed) network environment. The machine may be a voice mailsystem, a cellular telephone, a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, aset-top box (STB), a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a cellulartelephone, a web appliance, a network router, switch or bridge, or anymachine capable of executing a set of instructions (sequential orotherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine. Further,while only a single machine is illustrated, the term “machine” shallalso be taken to include any collection of machines that individually orjointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform anyone or more of the methodologies discussed herein.

The example computer system 200 includes a processor 202 (e.g., acentral processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU) orboth), a main memory 204 and a static memory 206, which communicate witheach other via a bus 208. The computer system 200 may further include avideo display unit 210 (e.g., a liquid crystal display (LCD) or acathode ray tube (CRT)). The computer system 200 also includes analphanumeric input device 212 (e.g., a keyboard), optionally a userinterface (UI) navigation device 214 (e.g., a mouse), optionally a diskdrive unit 216, a signal generation device 218 (e.g., a speaker) and anetwork interface device 220.

The disk drive unit 216 includes a machine-readable medium 222 on whichis stored one or more sets of instructions and data structures (e.g.,software 224) embodying or utilized by any one or more of themethodologies or functions described herein. The software 224 may alsoreside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 204and/or within the processor 202 during execution thereof by the computersystem 200, the main memory 204 and the processor 202 also constitutingmachine-readable media.

The software 224 may further be transmitted or received over a network226 via the network interface device 220 utilizing any one of a numberof well-known transfer protocols (e.g., HTTP).

While the machine-readable medium 222 is shown in an example embodimentto be a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” should betaken to include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralizedor distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) thatstore the one or more sets of instructions. The term “machine-readablemedium” shall also be taken to include any medium that is capable ofstoring, encoding or carrying a set of instructions for execution by themachine and that cause the machine to perform any one or more of themethodologies of the present invention, or that is capable of storing,encoding or carrying data structures utilized by or associated with sucha set of instructions. The term “machine-readable medium” shallaccordingly be taken to include, but not be limited to, solid-statememories, optical and magnetic media, and carrier wave signals. Suchmedium may also include, without limitation, hard disks, floppy disks,flash memory cards, digital video disks, random access memory (RAM),read only memory (ROMs), and the like.

The embodiments described herein may be implemented in an operatingenvironment comprising software installed on any programmable device, inhardware, or in a combination of software and hardware.

Although embodiments have been described with reference to specificexample embodiments, it will be evident that various modifications andchanges may be made to these embodiments without departing from thebroader spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, thespecification and drawings are to be regarded in an illustrative ratherthan a restrictive sense.

1. A method of processing an incoming voice message, the methodcomprising: at a recipient system, receiving an incoming voice messagefrom a message communicator; automatically analyzing message content ofthe incoming voice message to identify at least one keyword included inthe message content; identifying a predefined action associated with theat least one keyword; and performing the predefined action when the atleast one keyword is identified in the message content.
 2. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the predefined action is selected from the groupconsisting of associating a priority with the incoming voice message,alerting an intended recipient of the incoming voice message, routingthe incoming voice message to the intended recipient, paging theintended recipient, emailing the incoming voice message to the intendedrecipient, and sending an SMS message to the intended recipient.
 3. Themethod of claim 1, in which analyzing the message content comprises:performing speech recognition on the message content to obtain textmessage content; and parsing the text message content to identify the atleast one keyword.
 4. The method of claim 1, in which analyzing themessage content includes identifying in an audio domain if at least onekeyword is included within the message content.
 5. The method of claim1, wherein identifying the predefined action comprises investigating akeyword database including a plurality of keywords and at least onepredefined action associated with each keyword.
 6. The method of claim1, which comprises: identifying a spoken language associated with theincoming voice message; identifying a keyword list associated with theidentified spoken language; and identifying the predefined actionassociated with a keyword provided in the keyword list.
 7. The method ofclaim 6, wherein the incoming voice message is a telephone call and thespoken language is identified from caller identification data thataccompanies the message content, the caller identification data and themessage content being included within a message communication envelope.8. The method of claim 7, which comprises: identifying the keyword listfrom the caller identification data; and identifying the predefinedaction associated with a keyword provided in the keyword list.
 9. Themethod of claim 1, which comprises allowing a recipient user of therecipient system to define the at least one keyword and its associatedpredefined action.
 10. The method of claim 9, in which allowing therecipient user of the recipient system to define the at least onekeyword and its associated predefined action comprises: presenting akeyword user interface to the recipient user; receiving a new keywordfrom the recipient user via the recipient user interface; receiving anew action associated with the new keyword; and storing the new keywordand the new action as the at least one keyword and the predefined actionin a profile associated with the recipient user.
 11. The method of claim10, wherein the user interface is at least one of an email interface anda voice interface.
 12. A machine-readable medium embodying instructionswhich, when executed by a machine, causes the machine to perform themethod of claim
 1. 13. The method of claim 1, wherein incoming voicemessages are stored in a message database, the method comprising:receiving a search query from a user including a search term; searchingthe message database to identify at least one incoming voice messagewhich includes the search term in the message content; and presentingthe at least one message to the user.
 14. The method of claim 13,wherein the search term includes at least one keyword.
 15. The method ofclaim 13, in which receiving the search query comprises: receiving avoice query including a spoken search term; performing speechrecognition on the spoken search term to obtain a equivalent textualsearch term; and searching the database of incoming voice messages withthe textual equivalent search term to identify any incoming voicemessages including the spoken search term.
 16. The method of claim 13,wherein analyzing the message content includes identifying in an audiodomain if at least one keyword is included within the message content.17. The method of claim 13, in which receiving the search querycomprises: receiving a textual query including a textual search term;and searching the database of incoming voice messages with the textualsearch term to identify any incoming voice messages including thetextual search term.
 18. Apparatus to process an incoming voice message,the apparatus comprising: a communication interface to receive theincoming voice message; and a processing module to: automaticallyanalyze message content of the incoming voice message to identify atleast one keyword included in the message content; identify a predefinedaction associated with the at least one keyword; and perform thepredefined action when the at least one keyword is identified in themessage content.
 19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the predefinedaction is selected from the group consisting of associating a prioritywith the incoming voice message, alerting an intended recipient of theincoming voice message, routing the incoming voice message to theintended recipient, paging the intended recipient, emailing the incomingvoice message to the intended recipient, and sending an SMS message tothe intended recipient.
 20. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein thecontent is analyzed by performing speech recognition on the incomingvoice message to obtain an equivalent text message and parsing the textmessage to identify the at least one keyword.
 21. The apparatus of claim18, wherein analyzing the message content includes identifying in anaudio domain if at least one keyword is included within the messagecontent.
 22. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein identifying thepredefined action comprises investigating a keyword database including aplurality of keywords and at least one predefined action associated witheach keyword.
 23. The apparatus of claim 18, which comprises a searchmodule to: receive a search query from a user including a search term;and search incoming voice messages to identify at least one incomingvoice message which includes the search term in the message content, theat least one message being presented to the user.
 24. Apparatus toprocess an incoming message, the apparatus comprising: means forreceiving an incoming message from a message communicator; means forautomatically analyzing message content of the message to identify atleast one keyword included in the message content; means for identifyinga predefined action associated with the at least one keyword; and meansfor performing the predefined action when the at least one keyword isidentified in the message.
 25. A method of processing an incoming emailmessage, the method comprising: at a recipient system, receiving aplurality of incoming email messages from a message communicator, eachincluding message content; and automatically analyzing the messagecontent of each email message to identify at least one keyword includedin the message content; and prioritizing the email messages based on theat least one keyword associated with each email to identify a downloadpriority associated with each email; and selectively downloading anemail message with a higher priority before downloading an email messagewith a lower priority.
 26. A machine-readable medium embodyinginstructions which, when executed by a machine, causes the machine toperform the method of claim
 25. 27. A method of processing an incomingInstant Message, the method comprising: at a recipient system, receivingan Instant Message from a message communicator, the Instant Messageincluding instant message content; automatically analyzing the instantmessage content of the Instant Message to identify at least one keywordincluded in the instant message content; and identifying a predefinedaction associated with the at least one keyword, the action definingprocessing of the Instant Message by the Instant Message client.
 28. Themethod of claim 27, in which the predefined action comprises displayingthe incoming Instant Message to the user even though the recipientuser's Instant Messaging client indicates to a sender of the InstantMessage that the recipient user is unavailable.
 29. The method of claim28, in which the predefined action comprises sending the incomingInstant Message to an Instant Message mailbox when the keyword is notfound in the message content.
 30. A machine-readable medium embodyinginstructions which, when executed by a machine, causes the machine toperform the method of claim 27.